India beat Turkmenistan, but fail to qualify for Olympics

April 19, 2003 20:43 IST

Substitute Ishfaq Ahmed's second-half goal on Saturday helped India beat Turkmenistan 1-0 at the Nehru stadium on Margao, but the hosts failed to qualify for the next round of the Olympic under-23 Football tournament.

India, who needed a 3-0 victory margin to move in to the next round, dominated the game, creating several scoring chances but were let down by their strikers, who failed to capitalise on the chances that came their way.

Substitute Ishfaq Ahmed gave them the break when he collected a Ashim Biswas pass inside the box from the right and let go a powerful left-footer

that found the roof of the net.

Turkmenistan played a defensive game and never allowed the rival strikers any space to operate. They had the first scoring chance midway into the first-half but Krendelev Vyacheslov was late in connecting an off across from Zemskov Yewgenty.